The Chicago Convention

The head coach of this year's U.S. Men's Olympic Basketball team and of the Golden State Warriors, Steve Kerr let everyone know last week at the DNC in Chicago how time, like Old Man River, just keeps rolling along. Reminding the crowd of the history of the building they were in, he said:  "You young people, Google Michael Jordan and you can read all about it." 

The nineties were a great time to be alive and living in Chicago, not only because those were relatively calm days for both the city and the world, at least compared to today, but Chicago was also in the midst of a bona fide sports dynasty. Anywhere in the world you went, if you told someone you were from Chicago in those days, you would more than likely be greeted by the response: "Chicago Bulls, Michael Jordan!"

Not anymore.

Today we're back to being known as the home of Al "rat-a-tat-tat" Capone, as we had for decades before the arrival of Number 23 from North Carolina, on the Southwest shore of Lake Michigan. 

Boy, those were the days.

Likewise, until last week, the mention these four words: "Chicago Democratic National Convention", inevitably evoked memories of riots in Grant Park, of cops armed with tear gas and billy clubs and more than willing to use them, of the image of young protestors climbing on Alexander Phimster Proctor and Augustus Saint Gaudens' equestrian statue of General John Logan across from the Conrad Hilton Hotel, of the chant "The Whole World is Watching", of Hippies, Yippies, Mayor Richard J. Daley and Judge Julius Hoffmann, and of the (in)famous Chicago Seven, sometimes Eight Trial. I have no doubt people today who weren't around back then, remember those things more than they remember the candidates who were picked to represent the Democratic Party in the November election of that year, Hubert H. Humprey, and his running mate Edmund Muskie.

That of course was the Chicago Democratic National Convention of 1968. *

Never mind that before the 2024 DNC, Chicago had already hosted 25 presidential nominating conventions. the last being in 1996. more than any other city. Hardly anyone including yours truly remembers much about that last one. It could be because there was little drama, as the convention served as a rubber stamp sending the incumbent president, Bill Clinton, and Vice President Al Gore en route to their second term in office. Or maybe it was just because Michael Jordan and the Bulls were still dominating all the headlines in town.  

That convention is most famous for having been the first held in this city since the disastrous '68 convention and for the collective sigh of relief the city fathers (and mothers) breathed after they pulled it off, practically without a hitch.

Hard as it would be to imagine for anyone living in the nineties, almost thirty years later we're living in times that more resemble 1968 than 1996. Which is why trepidation was high that this convention would be remembered more for what went on outside of the United Center than within it.

Fortunately, that didn't happen. Starting with the Democratic Party, normally a fractious group even in quieter times, who came together nearly unanimously in support of their chosen representatives in November, Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz. Not only that, but they coalesced in a remarkably short period of time after President Biden announced he would not seek a second term late in July.

By doing so, they seemed to be taking my advice. Is it possible more folks look at this blog than I realize? 

The biggest fear was that the protests, which occur during every presidential nominating convention, would turn violent as opposition to the U.S. support of Israel in the war in Gaza, is understandably running at a fever pitch. I believe kudos must go out to both the protestors, their leaders, AND to the Chicago Police Department and all the other law enforcement officials involved., who took great heed in learning from their mistakes of the past. While there were some scuffles and arrests, this convention will forever be remembered for what took place on the floor rather than in the streets. 

And while we're at it, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker also deserve heaps of credit for setting the tone by insisting that we can both grant people their First Amendment right to protest and avoid violence if everyone works together. 

But will the words "Chicago DNC" from this point forward evoke 2024 rather than 1968? 

Who knows, I guess that all depends on what happens this November. 

* It should go without saying that prior to the convention that just ended, there were many remembrances of the 1968 Convention published and broadcast in both the national and local media. I was struck in nearly all of the ones I read and listened to, how the narrative about what happened has been cast to a very selective point of view. The general consensus is that the blame for the violence that occurred in Grant Park and other parts of the city during the convention lies entirely on the shoulders of Mayor Daley and the Chicago Police Department.

What is hardly ever mentioned in the discussion of the '68 Convention is the context in which it took place. In the contentious era of the late to mid-sixties, between the War in Vietnam and the struggle for Civil Rights in this country, riots had taken place all over the country. Two of the most well-known prior to 1968 were the Watts Riots of 1965 in Los Angeles, and the Detroit Riots of 1967. While not nearly as destructive in terms of lives lost and property damaged, campus unrest took place in major universities all over the country at that time. 

But in 1968, all hell broke loose. The watershed moment of that year took place on April 4 of that year when Martin Luther King was assassinated. The response all over the country was swift and devastating. In the days that followed Dr. King's assassination, much of Chicago was in flames.

It was during these riots that decimated neighborhoods on Chicago's West Side, that Mayor Daley issued his notorious "shoot to kill arsonists, shoot to main looters" order to the Chicago Police and the Illinois National Guard. 

In the shadow of the devastation, the DNC would take place in Chicago barely four months later. and the Daley administration, still reeling from the events of April, was steadfast in the determination that with the eyes of the country focused on this city, law and order would prevail during the convention. 

Meanwhile anti-war groups from all over the country set their sights on being in Chicago and made public their plans to do so. Some expressed their desire to simply to march peacefully while others planned to participate in acts of civil disobedience including spiking the city's water system with LSD. 

The Daley administration rightly or wrongly took all the threats seriously and vowed none of it would happen under their watch. 

The rest as they say, is history. 

There is no question that Daley and the Police grossly over-reacted to the goings on during the convention. But it also should be noted that the hit this city took only months before, certainly colored the officials' response to the chaos during the convention. In none of the accounts of the events of the 1968 convention I encountered, were the riots that took place after Dr. King's assassination even mentioned. One report on the radio which was filled with a number of factual errors that I easily spotted, inexplicably played the recording of Daley's "shoot to kill" order in the context of the convention rather than its proper context of the West Side riots.

Stuff like this is what makes history such an interesting and vibrant subject, especially when you've lived through it.